Юго-Восточный железнодорожный коридор: планы и перспективы развития

Proposed passenger rail project in the United States

The Southeast Corridor (SEC) is a proposed passenger rail transportation project in the Mid Atlantic and Southeastern United States to extend high speed passenger rail services from the current southern terminus of the Northeast Corridor in Washington, D. C Routes would extend south via Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, with a spur to Norfolk in Virginia's Hampton Roads region; the mainline would continue south to Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Since the corridor was first established in 1992, the U. S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has extended it further to Atlanta, Georgia and Macon, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.

Funding for the SEHSR in the early 2000s was by the USDOT and the states of North Carolina and Virginia. Both states already funded some non high speed rail service operated for them by Amtrak, and own locomotives and passenger cars. On January 28, 2010, the White House announced that Southeast Corridor would receive $620 million of its request. This money was primarily for capacity upgrades along the Raleigh–Charlotte portion of the corridor ( the Piedmont Improvement Program), along with some money for the Richmond–D. C. portion, as the Tier II Environmental Impact Statement for the important Raleigh–Richmond portion was not expected to be complete until 2015. The first large section of the SEHSR, from Washington, D. C., through Virginia and North Carolina south to Charlotte, was projected in 2010 to begin service sometime between 2018 and 2022, based on funding availability. Later in 2020, the State of North Carolina received federal funding allowing for the purchase of the active segment of the CSX S line between Ridgeway and Raleigh. as of 2023, Tier II planning is complete for the Washington to Raleigh section, and for portions of the Raleigh to Charlotte section. Tier I planning, in cooperation with North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, is complete for the Charlotte to Atlanta section, with some routing to be determined.

In 1996, USDOT added a connection from Richmond east to Newport News to SEHSR. However, with the extension of Northeast Regional Amtrak service to Norfolk in December 2012, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) re evaluated rail access to the Hampton Roads metropolitan area and on September 1, 2012, announced that while rail service from Richmond to Newport News will be maintained, the preferred high speed corridor has been shifted to a Richmond–Petersburg–Norfolk alignment. The current Amtrak route through Suffolk would change to achieve more separation from freight, and a suburban station would be added at Bower's Hill in Chesapeake. In November 2014 the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO) released a report recommending a different route, from Richmond to Suffolk to Norfolk via a new crossing of the James River near Charles City, bypassing Petersburg. This would provide combined high speed rail for a western portion of the Newport News route. It is not clear if the 2014 report will influence the project. Meanwhile, Virginia plans to expand conventional Amtrak service to both Newport News and Norfolk as part of a funding plan announced December 2019, encompassing major steps towards SEHSR on the Washington to Raleigh line. This would have the benefit of reducing the travel time between Richmond and Raleigh by nearly one hour for a much lower startup cost, though it may somewhat increase the cost of performing the later improvements. The Silver Star would also travel over a restored S line, as it did before 1986, and would also see the improvement in travel time. As part of Atlantic Gateway, Virginia sought to take control of the abandoned S Line right of way between Petersburg and the North Carolina border. In late 2019, negotiations were concluded and CSX, Virginia, and North Carolina reached separate deals that called for the two states to acquire the portions of the S Line within their respective boundaries. Virginia will acquire 65 mile (105 km) of the S Line between the North Carolina Virginia line and Petersburg, while North Carolina will acquire 10 mile (16 km) of the line between Ridgeway and the North Carolina Virginia line. North Carolina officials said that the Virginia deal will boost their efforts to acquire the remainder of the S Line to Raleigh, which remains in light service as the Norlina Subdivision of CSX carrying some freight traffic. The North Carolina Department of Transportation was awarded a $47.5 million federal grant in 2020 to purchase the line. In early June 2022, a $58 million federal grant under the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements program to fund the initial engineering work necessary for rebuilding the S Line between Raleigh and Richmond was announced. The North Carolina Department of Transportation projected a service begin on the route between 2025 and 2029. On Dec 11, 2023, Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, Sen Thom Tillis, and Governor Roy Cooper announced the state will be receiving $1 Billion dollars in grant money to develop the S Line between Raleigh and Wake Forest.

The segment of the corridor between Raleigh and Charlotte travels along currently operational lines of the North Carolina Railroad, roughly parallel to I 85. The portion of the route between Raleigh and Greensboro is over the H line, while the Greensboro–Charlotte section travels along Norfolk Southern's main line. (While the lines are owned by the North Carolina Railroad, Norfolk Southern has an operational contract for trackage rights.) Both see current freight and passenger traffic (Amtrak's Carolinian and Piedmont), with freight traffic along the main line particularly heavy. However, double tracking was removed from several sections of the Greensboro to Charlotte main line since its heyday, and significant signal upgrades, curve straightening, super elevation, and restoration will be required to support high speed passenger service along the corridor without interfering with freight operations. NCDOT has worked with NS, CSX, and the NCRR to restore the double tracking and make other incremental upgrades, a process that reduced the travel time between Raleigh and Charlotte by 35 minutes from 2001 to 2010. Additional work began in 2010 under the Piedmont Improvement Project (PIP), funded by a $520 million grant under the 2009 ARRA stimulus. The PIP projects included restoring complete double track between Greensboro and Charlotte, adding passing sidings between Raleigh and Greensboro, straightening several curves, closing crossings, and building bridges to separate train and highway movements, all of which were completed by January 2018. The ARRA funds, along with funds from the city of Raleigh and NC DOT, also constructed Raleigh Union Station, a replacement train station located at the Boylan Wye intersection of the H line and S line. The station opened in July 2018 with a concourse and platform along the H line only, but space is reserved for future construction of a northern concourse and platform along the S line for future SEHSR trains.

Another proposed rail project, known as the Transdominion Express, would connect to SEHSR and extend from Richmond west to Lynchburg and from Washington, D. C. (Alexandria) south via an existing Virginia Railway Express route to Manassas, extending on south to Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Roanoke and Bristol on the Tennessee border.